Greg Knapp has two words of advice for everyone who is concerned about the Seahawks’ inability to establish much of a running game in their first two preseason games:
Be patient.
The team’s new offensive coordinator can understand the consternation, but that doesn’t mean he has to subscribe to it.
“It’s the same transition I went through in Atlanta and the same transition I went through in Oakland,” said Knapp, who was the coordinator of offenses that ranked among the best in the league at running the ball with the Falcons (2004-06) and Raiders (2007-08) before coming to the Seahawks in January.
“It’s not going to happen as fast and as much as it was talked about. It will take – I don’t know – five, six, seven games into the season before the guys finally get comfortable with it.”
Like an iceberg, the tip of the growing pains has been the most obvious.
In their preseason opener against the Chargers in San Diego, the Seahawks averaged 2.8 yards on 33 carries, with a long of 9 by 
The most apparent reason is the injury situation on the offensive line – the unit doing the zone blocking that is intended to provide the backs with needed running lanes.
Left guard Mike Wahle retired on the first day of training camp, after failing his physical because he was unable to regain the necessary strength in his surgically repaired shoulder. Pro Bowl left tackle
The injury-induced shuffling that line coach Mike Solari has been doing would make a casino blackjack dealer envious.
The starting unit for Saturday night’s third preseason game against the Chiefs in Kansas City will be – from left tackle to right –
Contrast that with what Solari was anticipating would be his starting five: Jones, Wahle, Spencer, Sims and Locklear.
But the it-will-take-time element that Knapp was talking about is less obvious – the cut blocks on the backside that can spring the longer runs.
“If you can get guys cut on the backside, it just opens the hole so much,” Vallos said.
The linemen don’t cut block in practice – for the obvious reason – so they need to “practice” that technique in games. But compounding that situation is the fact that the Seahawks are facing a 3-4 defensive front for the third consecutive week.
“So we’re only cutting one, maybe two, guys,” Knapp said. “Where you should be able to cut three guys on the backside when facing a 4-3. So we’re going through that transition, along with having the parts change a little bit.”
Speaking of transitions, cutting defenders involves going down and knocking them off their feet. For the past 10 seasons, under coach Mike Holmgren, one of the most-repeated lines on the practice field was aimed at the linemen: Stay up. Stay up.
“We cut block very sparingly last year,” Vallos said. “It’s so hard to do it, because you get no practice and it’s such a different thing to go on the ground.”
Offered Locklear, “Going down to cut someone is foreign to everything we’ve been taught to do for so long. But it’s not like we can’t do it.”
It just takes practice, which has to come in the games.
“We’ve got to work on that,” Vallos said. “But we’ve got two more games to work on that, and it will really help the running game.”
One player who is not panicking is quarterback
“I’m not alarmed,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of faith in what we’re doing. I think if you look at the statistics, what we just need to do is pop a couple of big ones.
“We need to just get out in the open field and we need a receiver to get a block, and get a 25-yard run, or a 20-yard run, or a 40-yard run. That will make our stats look a lot better.”
It’s logic that is difficult to argue with. Change
But to break those kinds of runs, the backs need those cut blocks on the backside.
“It’s a work in progress,” Knapp said. “And it will take time to do it.”
